Artist of the Month, September 2010 : Jon Dee Graham

Sep 2, 2010 Artist of the Month

A few years ago I was starting to dig into the Ray Wylie Hubbard catalog and listening to some live stuff as well. On a particular show, Ray starts to tell a story about writing a verse about a local drummer and not being sure what to do with it. He played the verse for his friend Jon Dee Graham to get his opinion on it. Graham’s answer? Write a verse about me.

So the song “Name Droppin’” was born and my introduction to Jon Dee’s music was inevitable because I had to find out more about this guy for sure. Luckily the same guy who had sent me the Ray Wylie show had some Jon Dee as well.

This was just prior to Graham releasing Full so the show I received started out with this marvelously gritty sounding song about a pirate ship, “Tie a Knot”. I was hooked from the opening guitar line and as soon as I  heard Jon’s voice I knew I had discovered something I was going to love.

I went on his website to see what was available and noticed he would be in Ohio soon, so I booked him to play at the bar and got a copy of Full in the mail.

For those of you who are not familiar with Graham, he is a Texas native and an Austin legend. He spent the beginning of his career playing guitar in the influential punk country bands The Skunks and later The True Believers (Alejandro Escovedo’s band) before embarking on his solo career.

He is a three time member of the Austin Music Hall of Fame and winner of SXSW’s Musician of the year in 2006. To this date he has released 7 solo studio albums, has had a documentary made about him and his songs were covered by a list of Texas music legends for a benefit record to help with Graham’s son’s doctor bills.

Now back to the story. So I have Jon Dee booked for a Saturday night and I’m still not really sure what to expect, I just know that the one album of his that I have is quickly becoming one of my favorite records. Unfortunately it was the worst turnout we ever had for a show and I had to pay 2/3 of the guarantee out of my pocket.

The redeeming factor was that Jon Dee went out and blew us all away for almost three hours making the investment absolutely worth it. He was completely in control of the stage both in song and banter. At the beginning of the second set he decided that it felt more like a living room with the few people that were there and unplugged his guitar and did not use the mic at all. It was amazing.

Jon Dee Graham writes songs that are so honest the word honesty does them no justice. Graham pulls no punches with anyone including himself in song at that is what really makes him stand apart from everyone else.

As always I am going to pick a few albums to really highlight from his catalog but, I have to mention the song “Faithless” from the album, Escape From Monster Island first. While not one of my favorite albums of his this song is one the best songs ever written in my opinion. It is one of the songs that you can play when you are not feeling so grand and it immediately gives you hope.

The first album I will discuss is 2004′s The Great Battle, his last release on New West Records. This record is a perfect example of Graham’s ability to write great songs with a pop sense to go alongside his gravelly vocals and perfectly timed guitar playing. The first song that really stands out on this one is “I Don’t Feel That Way”, a track that shows the growth of the narrator in his way of looking at life. “The Majesty of Love” is a song that shows how highly Graham thinks of his wife. This is a theme that Jon Dee really attacks from an angle that is not at all cliche. He has a self deprecating manor when speaking of himself in a relationship that really hits home with all of us that has a significant other that has to put up with our many shortcomings.

Later in the album, the song “Robot Moving” has some great lyrics in it. “I swore I’d never use the word irony in a song, the irony is that I never meant to live this long, yeah but I did”. A final original on this record that is a favorite of mine is “Something to Look Forward to”. Another song about the daily life of a working married man just looking for ways to make it through the tough times.

Rounding out the highlights of the album are a cover of Neil Young’s “Harvest” and the best version I’ve ever heard of the traditional “Lonesome Valley”

Full was released in 2006 and is on my short list of top 25 albums of all time. From start to finish this record is phenomenal. It has a little bit of everything, hope, love, rock n roll, death, drugs, everything you need in a great album.

The song “Holes” is such a great Rock n Roll song that it prompted me to call a friend (also a Jon Dee fan) simply to tell him what he already knew, “Holes is just a kick ass song, goodbye”. “Swept Away” is the story of a staged death, used to get away and start a new life. It also became the title to the aforementioned documentary featuring Mr. Graham.

Also previously mentioned, “Tie a Knot” has the nastiest feel to it of any song on the album and it is an absolute delight to listen to. I wouldn’t care if he was just saying a bunch of nonsense in this song because it sounds so damn cool, fortunately it has great images like “The wounded inside are weeping Portuguese wine” throughout the tune.

“Remain” is another song written for his wife. Before he played this live he asked if there was anyone in the crowd married to a musician. When a few hands went up he told them that there was a special place in heaven just for them and went into the song. “Cigarette ashes everywhere, I’m almost gone even when I’m there” pretty much sums up the life a musician’s wife has to deal with every day.

The last song I will discuss off this album is “Something Wonderful”, which is another great Rock n Roll song that brings us all hope when times are rough. Seeing live footage of this track on Youtube makes me crave to see him with a full band sometime in the future because this song is an event.

A few years ago we almost lost Jon Dee to a serious car crash. His first words to the officer who arrived on the scene were “It’s not as bad as it looks” which became the title of the album he released after his recovery. I am not going to go into a lot of detail on this because you can read my review from earlier this year here. I will say that it has continued to grow on me and when I am not listening to Full I  find myself putting this one on quite a bit.

If this article hasn’t convinced you to check out all of his recordings please shoot over to his website and peruse all of the stuff there. I guarantee if you listen to him for a short while you will feel better about going out to face the day.

One more quick story I have to mention. Not only does Jon Dee Graham release great albums, play amazing live sets and save cats from burning buildings (okay I may have made that one up) but he also builds friendships. When I was promoting the show at the bar I went into the local guitar shop to hang a flier. I was amazed that in my little hometown someone approached me immediately for tickets. The person was part owner of the store and we started a conversation about Jon Dee. Turns out he had seen Graham a few years earlier opening for John Hiatt at the Birchmere in Virginia. We immediately hit it off and now are the best of friends. If you listen to the podcasts on this site you would know him as Matt Hill, producer, engineer and master of all things recordings.


Here is Jon Dee performing “Faithless” completely unplugged from the show I mentioned. The angle of the camera is poor but the feel of the song is definitely there.

Tags: jon dee graham, ray wylie hubbard

Album Review : Lincoln Durham EP

Jun 15, 2010 Album Reviews

It’s guys like this that make me wish someone would offer me a job in Austin, so I could uproot my family and move there (not that I have an serviceable skill mind you). This ep is a teaser to a debut album that is supposed to hit the shelves sometime this year. Four songs of all kinds of gritty, bluesy, roll down the window and sing along fun.

It’s no surprise that Ray Wylie Hubbard has signed on to produce young Durham’s record. The talent is overfilling the cup. Slide guitar, harmonica, a hellacious backbeat and vocals that would make Muddy Waters proud. Not to say this is a straight blues recording as Durham definitely has that Texas country charm intertwined with his whiskey drenched delta sound.

I would try to single out my favorite tracks, but with only four it is nearly impossible. “Livin’ This Hard” starts the disc out right with a hard rock n’ roll sound that gets you in the right mood.

“Georgia Lee” tells the story of a rough southern woman who wears a tattered dress and plays “Hoochie Coochie Man” on a guitar “blessed by Muddy’s hand” .

The next song ” How Does a Crow Fly” slows the tempo down a little and shows that Durham is no one trick pony. It really showcases his songwriting ability with lines like “I met a girl white as snow, I turned her a shade of grey”.

The last track on the short disc also tells of a man who loves the old blues. “Reckoning Lament” references Robert Johnson’s verse and Fred McDowell’s slide guitar by name. You can really hear Hubbard’s influence on this track as it would have been quite comfortable residing on his last release  A. Enlightment B. Endarkenment (Hint there is no C).

I have listened to this disc a dozen times through since receiving it yesterday and have not tired of it yet. On top of that I have viewed every Lincoln Durham video available on Youtube today. This kid is the real deal and my only complaint is that this is only four songs. Oh one more petty complaint, when his record comes out I will already have four tracks of it, so there won’t be a whole album of new ones.

If I lived in Texas, I would be going to see him as often as I could while he is still playing solo in bars just so I could soak in the feel. Learn more about Lincoln Durham on his website here.

Here is a promo video for “Reckoning Lament”. It’s just Durham and his guitar and it is fucking great.

Tags: album review, fred mcdowell, lincoln durham, muddy waters, ray wylie hubbard, robert johnson, Youtube Clip

Artist of the Month, June 2010: Michael O’Connor

Jun 3, 2010 Artist of the Month

Like many people before me, I first discovered Michael O’Connor as a guitarist.

I was listening to some live Slaid Cleaves shows and found myself drawn to the extremely tasty lead guitar licks I was hearing.

Inevitably, on all of the recordings Slaid would introduce O’Connor as the guitar player.

From there I went on to find out that over the last couple of decades O’Connor has lent his talents to many Americana legends including, Cleaves, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Susan Gibson, Adam Carroll and others. It became clear that if you were anywhere near Texas and needed a guitar player to add class and dignity to your record or live show you sought out O’Connor.

Interestingly enough my first looks into who O’Connor was did not unearth his solo work. Thank the heavens for Slaid Cleaves’ 2006 release Unsung, an album of cover songs that featured two tracks by Mr. O’Connor. On an album filled with finely crafted songs, O’Connor’s “Devil’s Lullaby” stands out in my opinion as the best song.

So now I had to know what else was out there from this guy. I found his website (yeah I know how difficult right?) and saw that he was about to release a new album, his second. I went ahead and bought his first release, Green and Blue (2000) that was produced by Ray Wylie Hubbard.This record was very bluesy and rough. The highlight for me is “West Memphis Blues”, a pretty straight forward blues tune.

After that, I kind of forgot about O’Connor for awhile. Green and Blue got lost amongst the records that I hadn’t listened to enough and then I downloaded a live show featuring O’Connor in a song swap with Adam Carroll. Finally I got to hear O’Connor sing the songs from Unsung along with a ton of other tunes that I had never heard before. O’Connor’s songs once again stood up against a great songwriter’s. On this show there are acoustic versions of songs from Green and Blue as well as most of the songs from his second release Giants From a  Sleepy Town (2007).

Well, I began obsessively listening to this show, especially the O’Connor songs on it. I contacted his wife who does his booking and attempted to have him come up here to do a show, which unfortunately did not work out. A couple of years passed and Carroll and O’Connor released the best album of the 2010, Hard Times.

With the new record being released, I had to get my copy of Sleepy Town finally as well as Hard Times. There was 7 years between the release dates of Green and Blue and Giants From a Sleepy Town and in that time, it seems that O’Connor found his voice in the studio. The songs on this album are phenomenal and the sound is great. I do not mean to disrespect the efforts of his first record, but this second release is amazing.

Among the highlights on this release are the aforementioned “Devil’s Lullaby” which features some of the greatest imagery I’ve ever heard in a song. “The sirens wail and the church bells chime, Sounds like the Devil’s Lullaby”, sings O’Connor in this one. Another absolutely stunning song on this record is the Tom Waitsish, “Trampoline”, which details the struggles of a working musician in a graphic nature.

I can’t sing the praises of this album enough, the songwriting is superior and it’s always refreshing when an artist is recorded in a manner that lends itself to the songs. It definitely seems that O’Connor grew into his own in the time between albums.

After I  listened to O’Connor’s second solo effort a few times, I moved on in an excited manner to Hard Times (2010). Here was an album that could not disappoint, two excellent songwriters collaborating on a collection of new songs with a common theme, gulf coast losers.

I was right this album is great, by far the best thing released so far this year. Once again, O’Connor’s skills stand out. He and Carroll co-wrote 9 of 11 songs on the record with the remaining two songs featuring one of them singing a cut from the others previous record.

The two of them take turns singing lead on the record, and in my opinion O’Connor drew the high card when he sang, “Bernandine” the story of a gambler praying to the patron saint of gamblers and addicts. O’Connor once again channel’s late 70′s Waits on the track “Throw a Nickel” which is also one of the better tracks on a great album. O’Connor also does a great job on the Adam Carroll penned “Highway Prayer” from Carroll’s release Old Town Rock and Roll.

Over the years O’Connor has solidified his spot amid the Texas music scene first with his superior guitar playing and more recently with his excellent solo work. While I am happy that it seems he will continue to appear as a sideman, I  hope that he focuses more of his time on his songwriting career. Whatever he does be sure that I will always pick up any album with his name anywhere on it.

You can learn more about Michael O’Connor and buy all three of his releases on his website, www.michaeloconnormusic.com.

As a bonus here is a download of the song swap I mentioned earlier in the post: Michael O’Connor and Adam Carroll 03-20-2007 . Just right click save link as.

Tags: adam carroll, Artist of the Month, michael o'connor, ray wylie hubbard, slaid cleaves, susan gibson

Review: Ray Wylie Hubbard: A.Enlightenment B.Endarkenment (Hint There Is No C.)

Apr 9, 2010 Album Reviews

Ray Wylie’s newest album has been out for a little while, released on January 12, of this year. However, I felt it deserved to not only be reviewed on this site but, to be the first review on here. Let me start off by saying Ray Wylie just simply exudes cool, as a matter of fact I believe fully that by listening to Ray Wylie your cool number goes up by at least 10%.

This album justifies that argument. From the first song, the title track,on through to the end of the record every song on here is good. The album has the feel of a blues record which is not new ground for Hubbard at all, but he brings his own feel to the genre. I was listening to this record for the first time with a buddy and the song “Pots and Pans” came on. In the tune, Hubbard repeats lines over and over again, my friend commented that he could not think of anyone else who can get away with that as much and still sound good. That’s the thing, Hubbard possesses one of the rare voices that can completely carry a song regardless of the lyrical content. The grittiness in his vocal delivery just sounds right.Having said that, it in no way means that the lyrical content is lacking on this release. As usual Hubbard captures the feeling of the common folk and wraps it around mean guitar licks to create a great album.

Highlights on the album for me start with the collaboration with Hayes Carll on a song entitled “Drunken Poet’s Dream”. Carll, a fellow Texas songwriter included this track on his last album, Trouble in Mind, so many of us were already familiar with the song, but of course Hubbard adds his own little twist to the song. He takes it and changes a few of the lyrics and makes the song infinitely more grimy, I love it. The next highlight in the album is my favorite track on here, “Down Home Country Blues” is exactly what the title says: a blues song about blues songs. It contains some great lyrics referencing John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf throughout the song and just basically making me smile all the way through it. A great song to turn up loud and listen to with the windows down on the highway. Other highlights include “Opium” which makes you feel like you’ve taken part in the drug yourself, the aforementioned “Pots and Pans”, and the stripped down gospel sound of “Whoop and Holler”.

Over all this album is another must own released by Mr. Hubbard. A great listen all the way through and one that just makes you feel good when you’re done. I am in the camp that he has just continued to get better as both a songwriter and a performer with every album and this one definitely stands up to any of his previous releases maybe being my favorite.

Go buy the album over at Ray Wylie’s Website or on itunes or however you get your music.

Tags: ray wylie hubbard, Reviews